Rally the Scytherunner
by Sanguine-Wolf
Summary: Shush, it's a secret. A secret that involves the Dark Eldar, the Inquisition, and a butt-ton of angry Kriegsman. Who wins? Well, nobody I guess, this IS 40k after all. Shit goes down though, so you might want to read. Or not. Choose well.
1. Freezing His Ass Off

The Kriegsman stared off into the distance, white snow flurries stained red by the plastic lenses of his mask. Stamping snow off his boots, he shifted his gun into a more comfortable position. This far from the rest of the outposts, nothing ever bothered them. Inquisitor Rylas requisitioned ten of the Kriegsman assigned to defend Planet M77823. KK4046696 tilted his head, a soft buzz filling his ears. It vaguely reminded him of the hum of Eldar anti-gravity engines. Dismissing the thought, and any more of the xenos, KK4046696 shifted again, trying to will the unusual buzz from his ears. On the other side of the outpost's gate, KK404823 shouted something, and pointed into the distance.

KK4046696's head swiveled, and he could just barely make out four dark specs headed their way. Sprinting forwards towards the trench embedded in the snow, the Kriegsman dove into it, taking cover behind the high walls. The humming sound grew louder, punctuated by a series of sharp screams as the vehicles drew closer. KK404823 scrambled for the edge of the trench, his lasgun hastily readied. Before he could throw himself into the protective snow, a large, dark blue and black jetbike, festooned with spikes, drove beside him. The unfortunate Krieger staggered, a hand clutching a gash in his gut. The sharp sound of a Splinter Rifle followed, and he fell to the ground.

A hiss of stale, sterile air accompanied the opening of the base's door. Eight more of the 404th legion sprinted from the opening, headed to their emergency posts. Another ululating scream vibrated through KK4046696 and he slapped his hands to the sides of his helmet. More Splinter Rifles sounded across the desolate plain, followed by the few screams of the dead and dying. The Kriegsman dared a look above the edge of the snow embankment. All he could see were a few shots of lasfire, woefully short of hitting the flitting blue shapes. Humming grew louder in his ears, and KK4046696 turned to face the sound. His eyes grew wide; one of the black and blue jetbikes barreled towards him. He ducked beneath the sharp, bloodstained front, throwing his lasrifle to the side. Suddenly, his feet fell out from underneath him and something hard slammed into his side. Flailing around the barred cage, the Korpsman felt sick. The jetbike's rider howled and shouted, calling his companions in the strange, Eldar tongue.  
Underneath each of the other three bikes, a similar cage to his held a Kriegsman. Once they realized that escape was not possible, they each gave up struggling. Wind whipped through the cold bars, cutting straight through KK4046696's jacket. Numb fingers flexed back and forth, vainly attempting to stave off the deathly chill with what little motion he could achieve. Warmth leeched from his body, drowsiness overcame him, and he closed his eyes.

_The Emperor protects. The Emperor... protects..._

Alloth Tyran waited in the docking bay with his ship's only Haemonculus. He sent out his warriors in search of some new souls to bring back to Commorragh, to Vorl-Xoelanth. The Haemonculus twitched restlessly, ever-impatient for her shipment of quivering, scared meat-flesh, borne by the weak bodies and minds of the Mon-Keigh. Sharp blades of the torturer's Scissorhand whisked through the air, sliding against each other with a soft whisper of metal. He knew the pickings of this raid were paltry at best, roped together from people not missed. That Inquisitor proved most malleable to the temptations of Slaanesh. The Shipmaster's crew fell behind his compatriots, and the eyes of his Archon were upon them. They could not return to Commorragh without proper tribute this time.

The Dark Eldar turned to the Haemonculus. Drool dripped silently from the vent-grille of her face mask, her eyes focused on some point in the far distance. Clearing his throat, he brought her attention back to the present. "You must leave at least three of the prisoners alive for delivery to the Dark City, X'ltan." Alloth Tyran's authorative tone brokered no argument, and the Haemonculus offered none, save another absent tangling of her weapon. He narrowed his eyes. Zhrysha's behaviour needed to be watched more carefully. Scytherunner required her to function for now, but with a sufficient harvest of souls?

A secondary hum, lighter and faster than that of the ship's engines, penetrated the hangar. The Shipmaster broke from his thoughts, returning his attention to the task at hand. Four jetbikes slid through the open hatchway, cages full of squirming whelps. Snow sloughed from the uniforms of the captured soldiers, melting into dirty grey water. An Aquila stood proudly on their helmets, and what skin he could see looked sickly pale. Alloth knew nothing of where they came from, or who they were, and he did not care. Curled up, shivering in the jetbike's cages, they posed no threat to him or the Kabal of the Dying Sun. What could the short-lived humans do to them, the Eldar?

M'kai, leader of Tyran's jetbike squad, hopped from the back of his vehicle. Blood splattered the front of his carapace-armour, freeze-dried by the sub-zero temperatures outside. Peeling off his helmet, M'kai stared at the Shipmaster for a long moment. The jetbiker gestured to the live cargo, his voice carefully neutral. "We've brought them to you, Tyran." Silence nearly echoed through the hangar, broken only by the futile struggling of the flesh-sacks in their pens.

After a long time, Alloth Tyran replied, "So I see, M'kai. Next time, bring me more." The Shipmaster, satisfied that some slaves had been taken, turned on his heel and exited the room. The sharp clack of his heels on the metal floors resounded in their ears, reminding them all who held their future.

As the jetbikers dismounted, the Haemonculus tapped her weapons together, contemplating which of the mewling sacks of flesh she should sculpt first. She planned to perfect their larval and incomplete forms with poison and blade. They thought they knew so much of their worlds.  
Walking to each of the entrapped Mon-Keigh, Zhrysha X'ltan tapped them with her Mindphase gauntlet. Their will leaked away, leaving them limp and listless. Inhaling deeply, the Dark Eldar could faintly small fear and some strange, synthetic smell. Pushing the thoughts to the side, she ordered the jetbikers to throw the prisoners into the Pens until she decided what to do with them.

The playthings of that rotting human 'god' held a special appeal. Their bodies were frail things, so easily carved into whatever aesthetic the Haemonculus chose. Their spirits, however, held on much longer than those of most other species. They cried and moaned, begged for deliverance from X'ltan's perverted attentions, day after day, week after week. It entertained her to no end. Perhaps this time, she would choose something different. Something new and unusual.

A stench like rotting meat assailed KK4046696's nose, burning a path straight into his brain. Snapping from his cold-induced sleep, the Kriegsman cast a wary eye around his surroundings. What light there was cast barely enough of a glow for him to see his own hands. Outside, he could just barely see the walkway that lead to each of the other cages. Dark stains littered the ground, painting an omninous portrait of those who had walked these halls before him.

Leaning back against the wall of his cell, the Korpsman inhaled deeply. Even stronger than before, that rotting scent seeped through his mask, curling around in his head until he felt nauseated. Since it broke on the journey anyway, KK4046696 pulled off his helmet and unlatched the straps holding his mask in place. Another waft of the smell hit him again, and he nearly retched.

Off in a darker corner of his cell, something moved. A crisp, crackling sound accompanied it, and the thing drew itself over the floor by its hands. Wet, skinless flesh left weeping streaks of fluid on the floor. KK4046696 jumped to his feet, ready to try and kill the thing if it attacked him. As it drew itself further into the dim light, he noticed something. A uniform clung stubbornly to the thing's shattered-looking back. The monstrosity raised its head and looked at the Korpsman, rasping in a voice part gutteral, liquid burbling, and part rasp, "Who?"

What had once been a Cadian, a proud defender of the Emperor's people, lay on the floor, wasted and broken. Bile rose in the Kriegsman's throat. One half of the man's face had been torn away, leaving him with dirty yellow bone bared to the air. All manner of pumps and filters surged through that half of his skull, refusing to let the flesh die, refusing to let _him_ die. Both his eyesockets were empty, blinding him. The optic nerve on the right half of his face had been carefully preserved, then nailed to his face in a symbol KK4046696 did not understand.

Once more, the Cadian asked who'd been thrown into his cell, and finally the Kriegsman answered. "Krieger Korpsman, Legion Four Hundred Four, Trooper Six Thousand Ninety-Six. Lieutenant." Weakly, the Cadian struggled into a sitting position. His skin hung loose on his body, and it seemed to crackle and crunch as he moved. Watching him made the Krieger sick, so he looked just over him, trying to ignore the foetid smell wafting from his wounds.

"Private Jasun Talk. 714th Mechanized Infantry." The words wheezing from his mouth seemed to drip between what lips he had left. Talk's raspy breath turned liquid, and he turned to cough up a black substance. Splattering against the ground, it wriggled back and forth for a moment before sliding off. Adrenalin pumped through the Korpsman before he realized that whatever it was wouldn't be coming back. "If you can still," the private paused to cough again, "Move around like that, then she must not have taken you yet."

"Who?"

"The Lady. I saw her, but only once. Beware her Garden." Jasun Talk let out a wet, half-mad laugh. "The Emperor protects. But there is no escape. You'll be here for the rest of your life." Chuckling to himself again, the Cadian slithered back into his corner of the cell, mumbling to himself, and occasionally to the Krieger. For his part, KK4046696 did his best to ignore the madman.

Slumping into his corner of the cell, the Korpsman gritted his teeth. Thinking back to the "battle" that landed him here, he wondered where the Inquisitor had been. Inquisitor Rylas specially requested the guards of that outpost, but never even took to the field of battle. Whenever the Inquisitor even so much as heard of xenos, he turned violent. It puzzled the Krieger, but he chose not to question it. The Inquisition protected humanity even more than the Guard did; he had no grounds to judge them.

Closing his eyes, he did his best to block out the meat-smell of the dying Cadian and forced himself into sleep. A sharp, scraping noise shattered the doze he'd managed. Opening a single eye, he saw a black shape flit past his cell, towards something off to his right. A strangled screetch reverberated up through the hallway. It stopped as abrubtly as it started, and whatever the shape was vanished up through the hatch before he could get a good look at it, shutting off what brief light they had.

Over in his corner of the cell, Private Talk remained eerily silent. The quivering, broken frame of a man dragged himself back into the dimmer light, peering outside of their cell warily. Black, drug-sluggish blood pulsed through the skinless hands faster than before. "The Lady's Shadow. She is coming for us again." Watching the Cadian slither back into his hole, the Krieger went to sleep once more.

Bright light scythed down from above, stabbing through KK4046696's eyelids. Opening them groggily, he stood up to see what opened it. A black-skinned creature crawled down through the portan in the ceiling. This time, it moved much slower than before, and he got a better look at it. She -for it most definitely had feminine features- sniffed at the bars of each of the cells, peering into each. At last, the not-quite Dark Eldar planted itself in front of the Krieger's cage. He blinked once, and it vanished. Stepping forward, he wondered if it had simply been something he imagined.

Jasun laughed, a high, burbling sound. An arm wrapped around KK4046696's chest and a hand closed around his throat. Panic whipped through him, and he flailed at the fingers holding his throat closed. The creature holding him stepped backwards, dragging him along. Cold, even fiercer than the cold of the planet below dug icy claws into his body, robbing what little breath he had left. Darkness slammed over his vision as he flailed against the black-skinned monstrosity at his back.

Sitting in her Garden, the Haemonculus looked over her newest work. She sliced away the soft, imperfect curves of the Guardsman those cretins brought her. Pinned to the wall by various spikes, his flesh glistened and quivered. Long, bone-deep splits rent apart the flesh of his arms and legs, muscles and skin held apart by wires, stretched to obscene lengths. In a fit of fancy, Zhrysha had cut the meat-thing's torso in half, discarding the front and all its bones. The exposed organs pulsed in the bright lights of the Garden, hammering away around the needles and syringes entombed in the perfected body. His throat opened in a diamond shape and liquid occasionally frothed out of it. No longer capable of screaming, he simply gurgled and whistled, writhing in mute, musical agony.

A chill spread over her body as X'ltan's pet Mandrake emerged from her shadow. She bent the creature to her will thousands of years ago and Lesaka still followed her every whim. Without turning from her newest creation, the Haemonculus gestured toward the table. Whatever struggling fly the Mandrake chose ended up strapped down to Zhrysha's favorite sculpting table. Panic radiated from the synthesized man.  
Once she discovered what prisoners were brought aboard, the Haemonculus initially paid them no mind. Only after inspecting the first of her new clays did she realize precisely what they were. For a long, long time she watched the Mon-Keigh crawl their way between the stars, oozing from their homeworld. They proved a plague upon her people, as well as their own. And now they struggled uselessly, a dying empire gasping for breath, predators on all sides waiting for the final, throat-wrenching bite. Out of all the armies of the bloated human "Imperium", some proved fascinating. Cadians, nearly always subtly tainted by Warp exposure. Elysians with their childish, ponderous airborne combat. Kriegsmen, synthetic beings designed to satisfy their war machine's hunger for flesh and blood. They all bled the same. Underneath their varigated skins, their bodies followed the same rules. Rules she broke and re-made, rules she profaned.  
And now she had a new base to work her art.


	2. Sideways

Finally turning to face the fly on the table, X'ltan examined him more closely. His frame seemed small and slight compared to his synthesized brethren, like he'd been shoved into circulation before his time. Whatever features he had blurred together and the Haemonculus' fingers began to itch. She could see to him later, after she reforged him the first time. Her Mandrake already prepared the slight man, stripping him down; leaving only the wriggling, flesh-sleeved organs. Reaching up, she pulled the vent grille from her face, drinking in the smells of her canvas.

"What shall we call you, Tin Man?" Her throat itched from using the base language, but she did so love to see how they reacted. "What did my last sculpture name you? I can't quite recall." Drool slid down her chin, the dead muscles in her face twitching into a weak smile. "We'll call you Sael'thas, won't we, Lesaka?" The Mandrake nodded mutely. Grabbing one of many needles strewn about her worktable, Zhrysha stabbed it uncerimoniously into the Guardsman's neck.

Recoiling from the drool dripping onto his chest, KK4046696 stared at the horrendous gash in the Dark Eldar's face. Her mouth extended vertically, splitting her chin and part of her nose. Quickly, his attention focused on his own body. The air he pumped through his lungs seemed suddenly sharper somehow. Quickly, his throat began to burn and sweat broke out across his body. Swallowing sent a sharp stab of pain through his throat. Cold from the metal slab seemed to freeze his skin, and the heat from all the twisted bodies in the room burned his other half.

Above him, his torturer smiled again, wiping drool from her face. "You feel it, Sael." Simply breathing sapped his willpower. In the corner of his vision, he saw the pale Eldar grab something. Her form shifted just under his field of vision. Something sharp pressed into his skin and his entire body clenched in response. Gritting his teeth, the Krieger tried to block out the pain radiating from his leg. Sickening waves of it passed over him, crushing him beneath their weight. Finally, it pierced through his skin.

After the agonizing slowness of that first cut, the Eldar moved quickly. Small incisions crawled up his limbs. Eyes rolling back into his head, the Korpsman clenched his mouth shut, trying to drown out the pain with prayer. The Emperor protects all his servants. Xenos will never triumph over the all-powerful God-Emperor. Clinging to the scrap of faith he had, KK4046696 stoutly refused to acknowledge the pain throwing his body into spasms. Slices travelled further up, crossing his chest and finally ending at his palms.

Some time passed before he realized the biting knife stopped savaging his flesh. A little more pain worked its way through his numbed body. Blinking film out of his eyes, the Kriegsman watched the Haemonculus shifting through numerous tools, before she finally pulled out what vaguely resembled tongs. Deftly snatching another syringe from a disorganized mass, she pressed it into the meat of his arm. Whatever drugs the vial contained tore the soft fog of shock away from his body. Leaning over the table, she held the tongs languidly at her side. "What is your name, Tin Man?"

He almost spat at her. Lying or refusing to answer would only inspire her wrath. "K-" Before he made it any further, the Haemonculus dug the tongs into one of the incisions on his left arm. Hooking the flat ends under and above the skin, she tore until it connected with the cut above it. She twisted for good measure, her slobber seeping into the raw wound.

"Incorrect. What is your name?"

Again, he tried to answer, and again she pulled another cut larger. Shutting his mouth, he resolutely refused to answer her. Waiting patiently for a minute or so, the Dark Eldar went silently back to work, ripping a jagged line into the skin of his arm. Breathing shallowly, he tried to ignore the pain roaring to his brain, blocking it out with dogma instilled in him since overseers first decanted him. Incessantly, it pounded at the mental walls he put up, threatening to break him. Wracking his brain for the answer she wanted, he ventured her own suggestion. "My name... is Sael'thas." Even saying it made him feel dirty, but anything was better than this continued assault.

"My, my! You do learn slow." She gave him a pat on the head that sent his skin crawling. That freaky sideways smile of hers twitched again, the pale, bloodless lips stretched too far to be natural. The tongs dug into his flesh again, tearing another connection between the cuts on his body. Even this did not make her stop. Anger reared up inside the Guardsman and he used it as a shield. As she continued her work, Sael hung on the edge of madness; anger and frustration acted as an impotent barrier. When his grip seemed about to slip, the hateful monster stopped, tossing the tongs aside.

Once more, he heard the soft metallic scratching of her tools skittering across their places. An unnaturally swift black shape flitted to her side and picked up the massive construct she wanted. Latching it to the table, she swung it over his chest. Massive, curled spikes jutted down from the contraption. From this angle, the black and blue shape looked unusually bulky for Eldar equipment. There was no mistaking the machine's purpose. Idly, his torturer flicked a hand across the side of it, and the curled wedges slammed down into his chest, tearing through the muscle and lodging deep in bone.

Loosing a howl, the Guardsman thrashed against his bindings. This new violation drove straight into his mind, ripping away any thought he could still make. A snapping splinter accompanied fresh waves of agony. The spikes began to spread outwards, shattering the bones protecting his body. Muscles stretched and snapped, torn asunder by the Haemonculus' weapon. Breath hiked in his throat, choking him into near-oblivion as the infernal thing tore him wider.

When it stopped moving, he snapped straight back into his body. A hand wriggled its way around the opened cavity, squishing noises disorienting him. His sight told him something moved within him, but he could not feel it. Suddenly, his difficulty breathing increased tenfold. His body convulsed, liquid filling up his lungs. chocking to death on his own blood, he glared at the Haemonculus. Drawing some of the blood into his mouth, he tried to spit at her. The shot fell woefully short.

"This simply won't do, Sael." With a gesture, the table flipped over. Blood poured in a brief, thick waterfall from the ruined remnants of his chest, draining out of his lungs. With another inversion, he stared glassy-eyed at the ceiling. "Lesaka, fetch me the repairer." Idly, he watched the shadow-black shape wander out of his vision, then return. The sharp spikes holding his shattered chest apart were removed, and something small plopped inside. Sharp, occasional jolts of pain kept him awake for a few more moments, but at last his mind passed through a grey fog.

Then, he felt nothing.

Inquisitor Friia stalked across the bridge of Sword of Defiance. It would still be another day before the ship emerged into realspace above the mostly-uninhabited planet the Mechanicus dubbed M77823. Stopping next to the flesh-and-steel column of the Defiance's captain, she wondered once more wether or not they would arrive too late. Before, her duty consisted of watching Inquisitor Rylas, whose behaviour recently became erratic. Friia's investigation hit several dead-ends, leaving her with conjecture and rumour, and finally she'd decided to take it directly to the source of the problem.

Staring forward, she focused on driving the doubt from her mind. If Inquisitor Rylas had indeed joined with the hideous xenos forces, it would be her duty to see him executed. After a moment, she waved over her aide, Interrogator Gregor. "Go over final gear checks. We're only here as long as the Korps are." Quietly nodding, the Interrogator vanished from the bridge. Friia's own flagship, Voice of Doom was dry-docked for extensive repair. At least if Rylas had even the slightly inkling she was after him, he wouldn't expect it before her ship's repair.

It was finally done. After all his work, he could finally reap the rewards of decadence. His colleges surely called him corrupt and confused behind his back, a traitor at best, a heretic at worse. After studying the Dark Eldar for sixty years, he understood them as none of them ever would. It was abundantly clear that they were right, in everything. How else would they have survived all these years, hunted by not only their own kind, but every other species in this galaxy? Long ago, he had tried those arcane rituals that stole the soul of another. He felt the poor woman's soul fill his body with new strength and a mental clarity he'd lacked before.

Of course, he needed more. Inquisitor Rylas had not yet seen Comorragh in the flesh and he would not stop until he did. At first, it started small. Little bits of misinformation, hints dropped to the Eldar Pirates out in the darker reaches of space. Never before had he dared to directly interfere. Those Kriegsmen were worth nothing to the Imperium, and nothing to him. Nothing beyond what they gave him with their deaths.

He finished setting the last of the explosives in his base, and prepared the research fail-safes. In a day or so, only grey, ashy snow would show anything had been there at all. In truth, there never had been anything there. Simply another front to cover his tracks. Walking out the single entrance, Rylas boarded his small ship and took off. As the snowy world dropped beneath him, he remotely activated the detonation sequence. To far away to see the damage himself, the Inquisitor angled his ship into orbit.

The Eldar promised him passage to Comorragh in exchange for enough souls to fill the quota they owed their archon, and he fully intended to lead The Scytherunner to as many as they needed. Anything to reach the Dark City.

Deep in her Garden, Zhrysha listened to the soft, whistle-y chorus of breathy voices. Each of her statues, fixed upon the walls, screamed their torment. Without voice or force, it produced a soft susseration that filtered through her drug-induced haze. Every now and again, Lesaka would molest the wounds of the Haemonculus' statues, playing their misery in a perfect song. Smiling beneath her blue vent-grille, she decised new punishments for the sacrifices M'kai and his ilk brought onboard.

As if even a tangental thought of him called the Jetbike Captain, M'kai strode into The Garden, knocking a limbless body to the ground. Out of one, heavily-lidded eye, X'ltan saw her Mandrake step from the Jetbiker's shadow and quickly right the groaning body. Stepping over a puddle of some pinkish fluid, he stopped in front of the Scytherunner's torturer. "My Haemonculus, I-"

"Speak your wish, M'kai." She had no time to listen to his panderings. For some time, he tried and failed to convince her to follow him. M'kai fancied himself better suited to lead the Scytherunner. In truth, the Haemonculus cared little for who ran the ship, as long as it continued its voyage of blood and fear. It seemed the worm still cowered away from a true confrontation.

"If you would just reconsider..." Though his voice betrayed nothing, she could see it in his body. They feared her Mandrake, and they feared her. Zhrysha intended not to interfere with either side in this petty struggle, though M'kai seemed to think she would.

"No, M'kai. If you cannot prove you deserve this ship, I will not help you." Growling deep in his throat, the Jetbiker drew his knife, fully prepared to carve a new scar into the Haemonculus' flesh. Closing her eye, she listened to Lesaka forcefully escorting the Jetbiker out of her Garden. He would move soon, and she looked forward to it.


	3. Friia Finds a Lead

When he next became aware of his body, it was not in a sudden jerk back to consciousness. Slowly, more and more parts of his body began responding. An ungodly ache radiated from his chest, spreading blinding pain throughout his body. Every breath felt like a lung-full of fire. Breathing shallowly seemed to help, but only a little. For an indeterminate amount of time, Sael struggled with his own body, until at last other sensations broke through the omnipresent pain. A chill seeped through him, delivered by slime-coated metal. Fighting his way into a sitting position, the Kriegsman finally opened his eyes. Once more, he found himself in the cages where the Haemonculus kept her prisoners. In the dimness, he couldn't tell whether it was the same cell as before. After a moment of contemplation, he realized it didn't matter.

There were stories, of course. There were always stories. Never be captured by the Dark Eldar. He could do little now but pray whatever death they had in store for him would be quick. Jasun Talk's face flashed in his mind, the blinded Cadian serving as a tangible reminder that it would not be so. Fire continued to smolder within him, blazing with each breath. At this moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to be back with his legion. Anything other than here.

For hours upon hours, Sael languished in his damp, dark cell, unable to keep track of anything beyond his own body. If any prisons other than his own were occupied, there were no signs. A few times, he tried to go through normal combat drills, only for the fire to tear him down once more. Curling into a ball in the corner, the Kriegsman slept. He did not dream, but it kept that terrible flame dormant. That was all he asked.

~ ~ ~

Pain roused Sael from his uneasy sleep. Jagged spikes lanced down through his arm, and his eyes flew open. Glancing around, his body seized up in panic. Again, that horrific, sideways mouth loomed over him. It curled into a smile, and a tongue darted out to catch streamers of drool. "Awake again are we, Tin Man?" He tried to move his head, only to find cold metal restraining it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Haemonculus reaching for something. Gut-twisting pain tore through his other arm as the Eldar drove some sort of spike into his flesh. Twice more she repeated the procedure, humming to herself over Sael's stoically-contained screams.

Her deft, thin-fingered hand grabbed a knife from the nearby table, and she began to slash through Sael's tendons. His eyes rolled back, and he couldn't suppress and pained groan. He prayed to the Emperor, hoping that something would kill him. The longer he denied her sawing open his body, the quieter he became. His final prayers were little more than tattered whispers across his dry lips. Doubt crushed the familiar catechisms before they left his mouth. The Eldar seemed amused by his sudden silence and laughed to herself.  
"Having the best of times, are we? Yes." She grabbed one of his arms, then pulled hard. With a hard tug, the spike impaling his arm ripped clean through, stuck fast to the slab. Even with a free limb, the Krieger had no will to fight back. Why bother? No one ever escapes from the Dark Eldar.

As if sensing the Kriegsman's desensitization, the Haemonculus suddenly dropped his arm, hurrying off to an unseen corner of her "Garden". The twisted figures of her statuary glared at him. Those eyes left within the bunch seemed to glow with hatred. Immobile in their prisons, they could do nothing butch watch as soul after soul passed through the place he had now, much as they had then. Only they had no more opportunity to die. A sharp, whistling chorus broke through the room. Sael's eyes widened as he realized that it came from the petrified not-corpses strewn about the room. Their screams had been silenced, turned into a perverted song for the Haemonculus. A chorus of the Damned, souls forsaken by the Emperor. Much as he now was.

When the Dark Eldar returned, several huge vials clinked about in her hand. Without any ceremony, she stabbed them into the Krieger's body. The fluids drained into his body and he could almost feel them working their xenos taint on him. He groaned again. Ignoring this, the Haemonculus tore up his other limbs and hauled the now-crippled Guardsman off the slab. "Walk, Sael'thas! Move at my command!" She gave him a hearty push, and he staggered forwards. Pain burst from the tattered remnants of the tendons and ligaments in his legs. She refused to stop, continuing to force him forwards. Shuffling at her command, he followed the orders without question, and without reserve. At least when he did as she asked, she kept the knife from his skin.

Their destination confused him at first. A wide, open room with a circular path in the middle. Off to the side, the Cadian he'd met in his cell gurgled quietly. Jasun's head swiveled, listening to every sound they made. The Cadian's back legs had been broken and re-grown with a backwards join, forcing him to the ground. A hiss at Sael's ear announced the Haemonculus' presence.

"I have a game for the both of you. You will each race to the end of this track. The winner receives a special prize. Just be careful not to die on the way." Somewhere along the way, she'd replaced her vent-grille, and a few strands of drool oozed from between the slits. Wiping them away with a hand, she gestured to a start line. Jasun hobbled towards it without complaint. His lips had been sewn shut since Sael had seen him last, and all that remained of his hands were melted stubs of flesh. As Sael limped slowly to the track, the blinded Cadian growled deep in his throat.

Without warning, a spear stabbed towards the Krieger's chest. Dodging to the side, it punctured his shoulder before retracting into the black track. Staggering forward, the cripple started the race. The Cadian jumped forward, his backwards legs shoving him awkwardly forward. Within a few moments, Private Talk lurched into the lead. Pain sliced through Sael's legs and he toppled forward. As his arms shot out to arrest his fall, a yawning hole opened up in front of him. He flailed wildly as his front half collapsed into the yawning gap.

Wriggling backwards, he managed to get his torso and left arm out of the hole before it shut. The plates smashed into his right arm, sending bolts of white-hot pain straight into his brain. It throbbed with every beat of his heart, stabbing deep into him. For a moment, he curled up, slack-jawed, unable to voice his agony. The jagged edges of his arm spewed life-blood across the track. A soft hiss heralded something else emerging from the track, so he dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way. Another spear punctured the air where his skull had been only a moment before. Hauling himself back to his feet, the Kriegsman looked forward. Already the Cadian had reached the end of the track. His odd, backwards-facing legs bent carefully underneath him. He looked like a dog.

The edges of his vision turned grey. Crawling along with his knees and remaining hand, he watched the Haemonculus approach Jasun. She stabbed her freakish, bladed guantlet through the eager Cadian's chest. He convulsed silently and keeled over. Sael crawled off the edge, holding a hand to the bloody stump of his arm. For a moment, he felt hate. Hate not for the Haemonculus, but for the Cadian. He had won a release that the Krieger could only dream of.

"Well, well, Sael'thas. It looks like you lost to your friend over there. Tsk." The ever-present form of the Mandrake stepped out of the Haemonculus' shadow, and grabbed Sael. Lifting him off the ground with little to no trouble, she glanced back to her mistress. "Take him back to the Garden. I think that is enough for today. For him."

~ ~ ~

Snow whipped by the Inquisitor's helmet and ice crystals encrusted the edges of her visor. The metal and ceramite of her armour glittered in the sub-zero frost. Her Interrogator stood by her side, frowning at a pict-slate in his hands. According to the few records they'd found, Inquisitor Rylas' research base was located around here. To her right, a psyker clothed in an innumerable number or robes scowled out at the frozen waste. Normally, Friia hated taking her anywhere; only necessity dragged them out here. With the disappearance of his base, Friia felt certain that he had indeed joined the ranks of the filthy xenos. Miserable with cold, the Inquisitor trudged across the ice, snow crackling under her feet at every step.

Bright blue sunlight reflected from the ice, nearly blinding Friia and the small group of Kriegsman who followed her. The external temperature dropped lower as the hours passed; M77823's bright blue sun began setting across the horizon. Once darkness fell, there would be no chance to find whatever Rylas left behind. The next day, whatever evidence he overlooked would be buried beneath tonnes of snow and ice. Shaking her shoulders, Friia brushed frost from her pauldrons in irritation.

A shout broke her from the monotony of scanning the ice-planet's landscape. In the far distance, a hand waved back and forth quickly. It vanished beneath the for a moment before the owner hauled himself out of a hole in the landscape. Turning towards him, the Inquisitor lead her forces across the intervening metres. The Kriegsman who'd fallen into the ice had a skull-mask that looked a bit different from the rest of the silent, unnatural clones. Looking down behind him, Friia found that he hadn't fallen into a hole, but rather a long ditch.

"You. What's your name?" He Krieger saluted and gave the rank of Private. Whatever freaky number he'd given instead of a name passed right over Friia. She nodded and pretended to understand it. The Kriegsman, who after a bit of convincing produced the name Ignitus, pointed over to a lump in the trench. Dropping down into the construction, Friia looked at the sides. Though the weather on M77823 worked to obliterate it, she could see the care with which it was constructed. Crunching up to the lump, the Inquisitor kicked it with her foot. Force knocked the loose snow and ice from the black leather. Another Krieger. Not one of the ones sent down with her. They'd found it.

"Sweep the area. If there's anything to find here, I want it found, yesterday!"

~ ~ ~

Far above the planet's surface, an unnamed shuttle approached a dark spot in space. Mimic engines suggest a small Imperial frigate, while a sophisticated cloaking device rendered it nearly invisible. No matter the tricks they employed to keep others out, Rylas would never be fooled. His entire lift revolved around these xenos; nothing would keep him from finding The Dark City now. Not while he was this close. Circling around the ship he knew drifted scant kilometres away, the ex-Inquisitor wondered how he would negotiate with the Dark Eldar. So far, he had only offered them the souls of those soldiers already under his command. Imperials would no doubt have found the ruins of his base by now, if he knew his pursuer well enough. A thought struck him, then. With as much trouble as she'd put to remaining undetected (as poorly as she had done), Inquisitor Friia would not have told anyone of her suspicions.

Waiting for the hail, he put the last pieces of his plan into place. Hive Aarustrag would submit to Inquisitorial authority. Finding enough slaves to placate the xenos would be simple. Smiling to himself, Rylas continued his circling pattern. Minutes dragged by, but his dogged determination finally paid off. The cloak around the ship finally dropped, and their bay doors opened. Carefully guiding his small shuttle into the opening, he felt the end of his journey become a step closer.

Landing down in a section of unoccupied space, the ex-Inquisitor shut down the shuttle's systems and opened the docking ramp in the back. Stepping out of the small craft, he took a hard look at the inside of the Dark Eldar's ship. He did not know what metals the bay had been crafted from, and he could not tell by sight alone. The angles and construction were so unlike the Imperial standards that it shocked him into stillness at first. Shaking off the awe of his first time aboard a working Eldar ship, Rylas waited for the Shipmaster. In the corner of the bay, a tall, thin-looking Eldar watched him with undisguised hatred. Unperturbed by the show of distrust, he simply leaned against the side of the shuttle. Though he had made a deal with the Shipmaster for travel and protection, he needed to watch himself. No deals made with xenos of this type were safe.

Eventually, the Shipmaster himself emerged. The aging Eldar wore a wan smile more akin to a grimace than anything else. His dark hair was tightly bound in a severe, high ponytail. The unusual slant of his eyes captured the ex-Inquisitor's attention for longer than polite, so he ignored the rest of the xenos' features. When the Shipmaster spoke, his voice held authority unlike any Rylas heard before. It mesmerized him. What the xeno said took a bit longer to work through his mind, and he found himself a bit late to respond.

"Y-yes. Shipmaster Tyran. I have found a way to give _The Scytherunner_ enough slaves to return to Comorragh. The nearby Hive World will bow to my commands. It will be easy enough to convince them to send a large group of civilians to an area of my choosing." He chose not to insult the Dark Eldar by explain the benefits of such a plan. Adrenalin flowed into Rylas' system. Here he was. So close to his final goal that it hurt.


	4. She's got your nose!

Vials and beakers littered the Haemonculus' workstation, glittering in the artificial light. Earlier today some once-servant of the Mon-Keigh false god boarded The Scytherunner. That single thought wormed its way into Zhrysha's brain, distracting her from which fluids she planned on mixing. Sweeping a hand across the table, she flung them all to the ground. Beside her, the mandrake jumped, dodging whatever fluids spilled across the floor. Standing, she rifled through a stand that carried more of her poisons. She had a special punishment lined up for the armless Kriegsman.  
Precisely measuring the green and purple fluids into a new container, the substance swirled around before taking on an unhealthy green hue.

Heating it over a burner, she smiled to herself. So far, she'd been rather kind to the synthesized men in the hold, keeping them at the brink of death at the behest of the Shipmaster. Perhaps if she killed one of them on accident, he wouldn't mind so much. Tipping a blue soulution into the bubbling green fluid, it hissed and spat before turning steel-grey. Removing it from the fire, she poured the special poison into a syringe where it thickened into a sludge. Placing it away from the edge of her workstation, she smiled to herself.  
Lesaka fidgeted uncomfortably in the light, eyes darting every which way. Snapping her fingers, the Haemonculus drew the mutant's attention her way. "Bring me one of the prisoners in the hold. We should have something special to show to the Shipmaster's new guest, don't you think?" Mute as always, the Mandrake nodded, stepping into X'ltan's shadow and vanishing. Scant minutes later, she emerged with a mewling, scrabbling Guardsman. This one had not yet lost his will... but she would break him today. Just in time for the Inquisitor to see. Smiling wickedly to herself, she went to work.

M'kai ghosted behind the Shipmaster's guest. Some soft, slow Mon-Keigh. If the jetbiker knew Tyran dealt with humans, he would have moved sooner. Too late to undo the shame Alloth already visited on The Scytherunner's crew, M'kai could at least destroy him. At first, he'd planned to wait until he could convince more of the crew beyond his own team to side with him. The Haemonculus worried him the most. If she sent her pet mandrake after him, he would die.

The idea hit him with force. Another Imperial ship recently entered the system. If he sabatoged the mimic engines and their means to access the Webway, the Imperials would do the killing for him. Staring daggers one last time at the filthy human aboard his ship, M'kai headed for the engineering room.

After a suggestion from the Shipmaster, Inquisitor Rylas fumbled his way through the ship until he met the Haemonculus. At first, she seemed no different from the rest of them. Spikes festooned the blue carapace armour she wore, and her flesh held an unearthly white pallor. The blue vent grille over her mouth dripped constant drool. He chose not to comment on it, but instead simply watched her work.

The body on the table in front of her looked less like a human and more a pile of rancid meat. His connective tissue laid on the table, strewn about haphazardly. Each of his organs, still attached to every system they powered, sat in different trays, wobbling and glistening in the false light of the ship. A smell like rot assaulted Rylas' nose and he did his best to ignore it. The sacrifice he provided for these xenos would all meet the same fate as this man, whoever he was. Smiling, he thought to himself how worth it it would be. To be a free human, walking the streets of the Dark City. What secrets he could learn...

An odd shudder passed through the ship, then things went silent. While the engines of the smaller Dark Eldar craft didn't match the bass rumble of Imperial ships, the slight humming of the deck completely stopped. The Haemonculus paused in her work, standing up straight for the first time since Rylas met her. She cocked her head to the side and spoke.

"It seems we'll be delayed, human." Her voice slithered out of the grille, snaking its way into Rylas' brain and leaving a risidual slime that made him shiver. "I've got a special event planned for one of our prisoners. You will watch." Clear that it was not a question, he looked around for somewhere out of the way to stand. Zhrysha, as she'd introduced herself, quickly tossed all the organs back into the man's body and sewed him back up. Grabbing something vaguely beetle-shaped, she dropped it into the man's nose and it crawled inside. With a nod to her black-skinned Eldar companion, the mandrake grabbed the comatose prisoner and vanished with him.

A moment later, she re-appeared with a different prisoner. While Rylas couldn't tell who he was, the look on the Guardsman's face was pure, unadulterated confusion. Looking over what remained of his uniform, he saw the garb of the Death Korps of Krieg. One of the sacrifices he'd used to bait the xenos into allowing him aboard. The man who had been Inquisitor Rylas smiled.

Rage built up in Sael's body, threatening to burst him at the seams. Right in front of him, a servant of the Imperium, the Inquisitor in charge of him and his allies, prepared to watch this monster do Emperor only knew what. The iron-firm grip of the mandrake kept him from throwing himself at the traitor, but his mouth remained unrestrained. He spit on the Inquisitor. Rylas simply wiped the spittle off his jacket and raised a brow. A one-armed Guardsman posed no threat to him, and Sael knew that he couldn't stand up to the ex-Inquisitor, even if he was free.

Strapping him to the operating table, that freakish Haemonculus grabbed a large syringe filled with a gunmetal grey substance. She poked at it once before squirting just a bit out of the needle. Tasting the odd grey sludge, she nodded to herself. Positioning the needle above his shin, she paused in thought. Absently, she stabbed downwards, injecting the semi-solid straight into his bones. After what else he'd lost already, Sael hardly noticed it. Quickly, his leg became stiff and the odd feeling travelled up his leg, crawling across to the other side of his body, freezing his other leg in place. Over beyond his field of vision, the Dark Eldar clinked together glasses, doing Emperor only knew.

That stiff, paralyzing feeling crept from his waist up, immobilizing his spine. Panic began to set in as he realized whatever she'd injected him with robbed him of the ability to move. Soon, he would stand as still as any of the silent, tortured statuary in the room. The grey sludge seeped through the bones of his remaining arm, and up his neck before the Haemonculus returned. Stabbing another needle through his scalp and into his skull, he felt another liquid seep into the bones there. Blindingly hot pain shot through his jaw, concentrating just behind his eyes as whatever poison she'd injected him with did its work. Where it burned, the steel-grey in his bones moved no further.

The Inquisitor finally spoke up, but addressed the Haemonculus with his question. "What did you do to him, Zhrysha?" Zhrysha. Sael would remember that name. The haemonculus turned from her table, large hammer in hand. The scathing look she sent the Rylas' way bounced right off.

"The substances I injected into his bones serve two purposes. The grey causes them to grow very, very brittle, and paralyzes all the joins. That red fluid counteracts it. We need you alive, don't we Sael? Yes we do." Behind that vent, her sideways mouth twisted and slobbered. The very thought of it revolted the Krieger. She turned towards him and removed her vent-grille. She smiled at him, her lips curling to the right in a lopsided C shape.  
She grabbed the hammer and smashed it into Sael's chest. Pain far worse than anything he'd ever felt before radiated from the point of impact. Far away, he could hear a crackling noise. Shockwaves of agony radiated through his bones, and the jagged tips of the shattered skeleton stabbed up through his skin. Blissful darkness hovered just within his reach. Before he could reach for oblivion, Zhrysha jabbed another needle into his neck. Clarity assaulted his mind, dragging him back from the comforting black and red of unconsciousness. Every breath shifted the ruptured bones, working them deeper into the ravaged muscles.

By his side, the Eldar flipped a short, thin blade through her fingers. Sliding its edge up against the Krieger's cheek, she let the metal warm on his face. Pressing down, she sank the knife just beneath the skin and blood welled up around the monomolecular blade. Dragging it out to the side of his face, just shy of his ear, the Eldar began humming to herself. Plunging the small knife into the thin layer of flesh by his ear, the Haemonculus dragged it upwards. Small, white-hot bursts of agony shot through him, and Sael twitched on the table. At every movement, the remnants of his skeleton ground against his insides, bleeding him dry. Sael looked around wildly; his eyes finally settled on Inquisitor Rylas. Then, the gun at Rylas' hip. After a moment, the Inquisitor noticed, and followed his gaze. A cruel smile lit at the edge of his lips.

"No, not today, I think." The Dark Eldar's blade cut across the top of Sael's forehead. Her humming grew a bit louder, and the henious "statuary" began their whispered screaming once more. Two more slow drags of the knife, and Zhrysha returned to her original position. Digging her fingers underneath the incision, Sael had only an instant to realize what she planned before the Haemonculus tore upwards with all her inhuman strength.  
As she began to peel off his face, Sael writhed against his bonds, the grinding, scraping of his bones secondary to the animal terror thick in his veins. The raw red of his detatched skin leered at him as more and more surrendered to the insistent pressure. His bonds still held fast, though his thrashing increased in ferocity. Once more, that insistent blackness pressed at the edges of his mind. Sael grabbed it, and his body shut down.

Pain crushed the air from Sael's lungs, and the shallow breaths he took seared through his lungs. Eyes snapping open, he tried to look at himself. Restraints kept his head in place, but the sheer, mind-melting agony pounding into his skull told him all he needed to know. Even trying to twitch back and forth seemed murder. Slowly, he became aware of more than his own body. On his right, Zhrysha waited with a knife in hand, her Scissorhand Gauntlet firmly affixed around the other.

Her knife dragged down his leg, and she came up with a thin strip of his skin. Dangling it in front of his nose, she giggled to herself. "Awake now? Good, we've almost finished with the preparations." Reaching up, she undid the strap holding his head to the table. Though the rest of his body refused to respond to his commands, Sael's neck still worked fine. Looking downwards, he gave a pained moan. Red, skinless flesh pulsed angrily at him, the throbbing of blood in the arteries and veins matched the tattoo beating across the backs of his eyes. Glancing further up, then to the side, he realized the rest of his body had followed suit.

He wished nothing more than to die. Some arcane horror kept him firmly alive, stuck and grounded in the Haemonculus' plans. Bone stuck through his flesh, ripping through muscle and gouging into the meat of his body with each breath. Where his skin had been, he felt nothing but fire, tearing away at him. The Haemonculus' terrible smile heralded more.

To his left, a large tank he'd never noticed before had been filled with a greenish liquid. Sael briefly wondered what purpose it served before a fresh wave of torment erased any attempts at coherent thought. As the spots faded from his eyes, Sael felt the Eldar pour a cold liquid across his chest. His eyes fixed on her, and from seemingly nowhere she produced a flame. Touching it to the cold liquid, it lit aflame, drenching him in an inferno.  
He screamed. Fire snatched its chance, propelling into his lungs and searing them to a crisp. Muted, but not stopped, the weakened screams shook some of the statues on their pedestals. They vibrated and screamed in sympathy, creating an all-new chorus of voices. Just under the cracking of the flames, Sael could hear the Haemonculus laughing.

The Krieg ship Defiance plodded slowly through orbit. Inquisitor Friia comandeered the ship to chase Rylas. What little evidence she'd found on the snowy planet suggested he would still be in orbit, somewhere around the planet. A few hours after they'd returned to the planet, they only picked up the signature of a small frigate passing through the area.

Unless they found Rylas before he left the planet's orbit, tracking him down would prove nearly impossible. Even finding the remnants of his base hinged on pure luck. With the stealth of an Eldar ship, they stood little to no chance of finding him. Never before had Friia cared to know what sorts of technology they would be facing. No unusual emissions tainted the planet's immediate presence, and no warm energy saturated the areas. It seemed as if the ex-Inquisitor never visited the planet at all.

One of the servitors jerked in its station. "Xenos presence detected. Xenos presence detected." It droned on and on. Immediately the Captain's vox blared static, followed by a series of orders. Connected to the ship as he was, he did not need to see the readouts, he simply knew them. Within moments, he double-checked through all systems that it was a xenos ship signature, and a Dark Eldar one at that. Close enough to reach under fifteen minutes.  
Friia bolted into action. Hours before, she'd set up a raiding team and put them on standby. Though her choices had mostly been random, as the Kriegers seemed faceless and interchangable, she did request the one who found Rylas' base accompany them. The journey to the hangar bays gave the ship enough time to close in on the xenos signal. Though its sudden appearance worried her, the chance to catch the traitor outweighed the risks.

Ten minutes after the initial call, Friia stood among the assembled troops. Unlike the Cadians or the Elysians, the Kriegsmen did not banter. Each checked his weapons silently, made certain his gear was in place, and prepared for whatever dangers the boarding entailed. Without comment or joke, they made peace with the Emperor, and prepared to send the corrupt xenos straight to whatever hell they first emerged from. The two squads she'd convinced the Death Korps Legion to lend her loaded into two of the dropships in the hangar. Interrogator Gregor hopped onto the dropship's ramp and ran to the Inquisitor's side. He handed her a pict-slate as the ramp closed up and sealed behind them.

Vague, incomplete schematics of what appeared to be some sort of Dark Eldar frigate covered the screen. The information they contained didn't help at all, even if it was accurate. Opening a ship-to-ship communication link, she addressed the squads following her as they started the engines. "This is a search and destroy objective is to kill any and all xenos aboard the Dark Eldar vessel, and locate Inquisitor Rylas. Kill him." With that, she closed the link.  
The dropship engine's whine rumbled into a roar, and it took off. Without windows to see outside, Friia had no way to tell when they would hit the Eldar frigate. Strapping into one of the seats, she waited for the tell-tale shudder of first contact. Under the helmet of her battle gear, she smiled. Even if they didn't find the Inquisitor aboard the vessel, every one of them would send a few more of these bastards straight to hell, wiping them from the God-Emperor's sight. That made it all worth it.


	5. And then there were those guys

Re-checking his lasrifle for the fortieth time since taking off, KK4042231, "Ignitus". prepared for boarding action. Kriegsmen were designed and trained with trench warfare in mind, not fast-paced ship-to-ship combat. Still, whatever the Inquisitor wanted, she would have. A count-down broadcast over the drop ship's vox-speakers. All KK4042231's squad mates tensed up the closer things came to boarding.  
On the count of zero, a shudder ran through the ship. Punching a hole straight into the Dark Eldar frigate, the drop ship released its human cargo. A door on the side opened up, and they all filed out. Looking to the side, Ignitus realized some sort of seal prevented depressurization. Nervously, he checked the clamps on his mask. Alarms shrieked through the wounded ship, piercing in their intensity. Grimacing at the grating sounds, the Kriegsman gripped his lasrifle a bit tighter and turned to his commander. Silently, the commander ordered them to split up into groups of two and search the frigate. The commander paired Ignitus with KK4046342 and sent them down the hallway to their left.

Without complaint, the two soldiers headed that direction. The oddly-shaped door at the end of the hall blocked their progress. KK2026342 bashed at it with his own lasrifle for a moment. Looking to the side, KK4042231 noticed a "keypad" of sorts, covered in various, unfamiliar symbols. Pressing a few at random, the pad sparked and spluttered before overloading entirely. Looking to his companion in confusion, he shrugged. A few moments later, the door hissed open. Stepping through, the two Kriegers checked all corners of the room before entering. As far as they could tell, it looked like some sort of sleeping quarters. Three new doors confronted them, one on each wall. Choosing one at random, Ignitus lead the way.

Deciding the middle door must lead deeper into the ship, Ignitus and KK2026342 advanced. A shockwave ground through the ship; the deck jumped and shuddered under their feet, and a distinct rushing sound filled the room. Another, secondary alarm peaked over the piercing invasion siren. Wishing for a moment that he was deaf, KK4042231 approached the door he'd chosen. Just before the two Kriegers reached it, one of the xenos opened it from the other side. For a moment, it stared at them in stupid confusion before KK2026342 raised his lasrifle and squeezed the trigger. Surprise dulled the freakishly proportioned, too-pale alien's reactions, and it dropped to the ground with a thud. Stepping over the corpse with barely a glance, they continued forward. On the other side of the room, a horrifying host faced them.

Alien technologies they couldn't guess at, or even begin to understand bristled from every wall. Blades, poisons, and handguns poked from every available space. What dominated their attention, however, were the massive tanks near the back of the room. Three, side-by-side, were filled with a disgusting purple sludge that slopped at the walls of the tank. In the centre tank, a ruined, scarred body floated. It was missing an arm, and floated almost serenely in the xeno fluid. Some strange apparatus hooked up to his face, obscuring most of it. KK2026342 walked up and tapped the glass, tilting his head at an angle. Ignitus peered at the figure inside. '342 loosed a strangled call and stumbled backwards at the same moment Ignitus realized exactly who the vile purple fluid contained. Though torture marred his body, the Krieg pallor touched his skin and a Krieger designation had been branded into his shoulder. KK2026342 smashed the butt of his rifle into the tank.

The force of the hit cracked the glass, shaking the whole tube violently. Ignitus shied back as some of the purple fluid seeped through the cracks in the glass. His squadmate smashed at it again, and it shook heavily. The figure inside jerked, his eyes snapping open. He flailed wildly about, sending the fluid to violent sloshing. Tearing away the strange, black apparatus, he smashed at the walls of the tank from the inside. KK2026342 cracked it one more time, and it burst open, spilling the purple liquid and the tank's occupant onto the floor. Coughing wetly, he staggered to his feet. '342 pointed his lasgun at him. Through luck, the captured Kriegsman wasn't shot, but his reaction was severe. Surging forward, he landed a punishing blow on the 202nd legionnaire. Quickly running over the orders the Inquisitor gave him before their mission, KK4042231 decided that whichever one lived would go with him. Inquisitor Friia never gave them orders to kill survivors or to save them. The ensuing struggle didn't particularly interest him, so he missed most of it, electing instead to watch out for any other xenos that might head this direction.

Rather quickly, the smaller Kriegsman strangled Ignitus' original partner to death. Stripping off most of his gear, he donned it with speed and precision. Grabbing the lasrifle, he half-raised it in KK4042231's direction before he shook his head. "Designation?"

"4046696." One of his own legion then. Gesturing for the "rescued" Kriegsman to follow him, Ignitus moved deeper into the xeno ship.

M'kai scowled. The alarms blaring through the ship proved his suspicions correct. The human aboard their ship was incompetent, and by trusting him Alloth Tyran was a fool. The boarding action crippled the Scytherunner, but before he died M'kai would end their Shipmaster. The small craft limped through space, its metallic veins clogged with disgusting soldiers of that decaying Imperium. Heading towards the bridge, he pulled out his blade. It shone a sickly dark green under the harsh lights of the ship, and M'kai had a perfect place in mind to shove it.

The doors to the bridge slid open. Alloth scowled over a map of the ship, weighing his options. He knew the Scytherunner couldn't escape with the jaws of the Imperials locked around its throat. M'Kai took his chance. Striding forward without hesitation, he slid his blade forward. Distracted and weak as the fool was, the shipmaster put up no defense as the poisoned blade slid home between his ribs. Quietly, he gurgled and slid to the floor. The paralyzing agent in the poison made his death slow, painful, but silent. Sliding out just as quickly as he'd entered, the Jetbiker left the bridge. While the Scytherunner had no chance, he would not fall over and die so easily.

Friia squared off against the rogue Inquisitor. Her powersword glimmered with raw energy. It crackled with pure destructive potential. Rylas squinted, his fingers sparking with purple energy. She always knew he possessed Psyker abilities, but seeing them was something else entirely. The air vibrated with pressure, and she dodged to the side. Warpfire burned forth, splashing against the bulkhead. It hissed and burned, the metal bubbling beneath the unnatural conflagration.

Dashing forward, she slashed at Rylas, cleaving downward with every ounce of hatred she summoned up for the corrupt whoreson. A sick feeling penetrated her guts and her perception skewed to the side. Stumbling, she fell to the ground, smashing her face against the tainted xenos metal. Shaking her head to clear her Psyker-muddled senses, her vision swam back into focus. Blinking smeared spots from her eyes, she saw Rylas preparing to stab his empty symbol of the Crux Terminatus into her chest.

Rolling to the side, she barely avoided the killing blow. Stabbing upwards with her powersword, it penetrated the corrupt Inquisitor's knee. He cried out, and his cries resonated deeply with Friia. It satisfied her; the cries of one who perverted their power. He staggered, limping away from her. Jumping back to her feet, she lunged at him once more. As her blade cleaved through his chest and burst through his heart, he clapped a hand to the side of her face. Warpfire burst from his palm, scorching the flesh from her face. Horrifying sights of creatures enslaved by xenos ripped through her mind, delving quickly into more heinous visions of things only glimpsed in the fevered nightmares of Psykers. Twitching, she fell to the ground, collapsing atop the cooling corpse of the other Inquisitor. Eyes rolled up into her head, drool foamed at the edges of her mouth. Though her blade felled Rylas, his final act tore her down.

Finally free of the Haemonculus, Sael felt a surreal sense of calm descend over him. He could always claim The Emperor saw him through the ordeal, but whatever faith he held in the gold-glit idol faded, torn from him just as effectively as his flesh. Now that it was gone, phantom sensations of blades dragged through his body. Sael welcomed them. His fingers twitched uneasily across the pilfered lasrifle. Every nerve in his body felt raw. More alive than it ever felt before.

The Kriegsman he followed seemed almost unconcerned that he'd murdered another of their number. A bit of prying between tense sessions of mostly avoiding the Eldar, Sael found the name he'd given himself. Ignitus. Interesting. They stopped before another door, taking up position on either side. The motions drilled into both of them were so mechanical, they didn't even need to know each other to perform them. The portal slid open with a tortured hiss. Popping his head into the room, gun-barrel first, he blinked a few time to make sure his vision wasn't faulty.  
Two bodies lay on the floor. Both human. Blood began to crust and dry on the floor, pooling out from beneath them. Ignitus looked into the room and stiffened. After checking the rest of the room, they both advanced into the scene of the battle. KK4042231 knelt down and checked for any signs of life. Eventually, he picked her up and hauled her over his shoulder.

"Follow me." Sael tilted his head, but went along with him. As the first Kriegsman retraced his steps, he placed his gun into the rifle scabbard on his back, putting his full attention towards carrying the woman. KK4046696 couldn't think of why he would do such a thing, but he didn't question. Not if they had a way out. Within a few minutes, mostly back-tracking through rooms they'd already checked were clear, Ignitus lead them to a boarding ship they'd taken over. Re-boarding the damaged craft, he dropped the woman onto the floor.

Crammed into a small escape craft, M'kai wondered where they'd go from there. Only he, that slobbering Haemonculus, her Mandrake slave, and one other jetbiker. Without a ship, and with barely any supplies, he hardly knew how they would continue on. Though his old Shipmaster had been foolish enough to let a Mon-Keigh into their ship, he would not make the same mistakes. No matter what, they would endure. And one day, they would reign a terror upon the Imperium as they'd never known before.

Two weeks after his escape from the horrible xeno craft, Sael stared back at his reflection. Grey circles ringed his eyes, still hollow from the nightmares. Pain still radiated from his scars in sharp bursts. It no longer bothered him. Then, he noticed something strange in his reflection. Looking up towards his scalp, blue hair grew up from the roots. Panic struck him rigid. This... this was heresy. Whatever chemicals that xeno whore injected into him altered him. Grabbing his knife, he hewed off most of his hair, then slammed his helmet down onto his skull.

As the weeks passed, more of the freakish blue hair emerged from his scalp. Every attempt he made to cut this new blue hair failed. He dulled his knife attempting to sever it, and burning it did nothing. An oppresive sense of doom settled over him.

Two month after his liberation from that xenos hell-ship, KK4046696, felt an executioner's blade hover near. The Inquisitor called for him. Since she'd returned to the ship, they'd healed the damage to her mind and flesh. Her once-fine features were ruined by the Warp flames, giving her a more intimidating appearance. She still retained control over the Krieg ship, rather reluctant to give it back to the captain. Her will overturned even the wants of the Commissars aboard.

When Inquisitor Friia summoned him, they'd taken bits of his tissue for something, then pulled out some of his hair. The properties that ruined blades meant to cut it apparently didn't extend to dulling the pain of having it ripped from his scalp. Sitting in the emptry room, he adjusted his helmet once more and began to fidgit nervously. An interminable time later, Inquisitor Friia arrived. Snapping from his seat, Sael stood to attention. She stared back at him.

"This proves a most interesting case. A suvivor of the Dark Eldar, still fit for combat." She paused for an uncomfortable amount of time, leaving KK4046696 standing at attention even still. "I have elected to stay your execution for now." His shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. He waited for orders, or an explanation. She offered none. "You are, however, tainted filth. We will be using you for research. First, we'll wait for whatever that Eldar put into you to take full effect before we begin any invasive proceedures. You will be stationed on planet M4467234 until such time as I return to claim you. Leave." Startled for a moment, he hesitated before leaving the room, thoughts torn. On one hand, he would live. On the other, that might only be borrowed time. It was good enough for him.


End file.
